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Star Trek: Picard Has Changed Hugh Borg's Appearance
Star Trek: Picard's Hugh Borg will look a little different compared to his days in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Hugh was a damaged, abandoned Borg drone discovered by Jean-Luc Picard's Enterprise-D crew and taken aboard for further investigation. While the ship's captain sought to either destroy the cyborg or use it as a weapon against the wider Borg collective, Hugh's separation from the hive consciousness allowed his human instincts to come to the fore. After Geordi La Forge befriended Hugh and gave him his human name. the Borg soon became an ally to the Enterprise, going on to lead a small band of other disconnected Borg drones.
The upcoming Star Trek: Picard series will see a number of familiar faces return to the franchise, but in addition to more predictable names like Riker, Data and Troi, Star Trek: Picard is also reintroducing a few surprise characters, including Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine and Jonathan Del Arco's Hugh Borg. Not much is currently known about Hugh's role in Star Trek: Picard, but logic might dictate he has some connection to the Romulan facility seen in the first trailer. Hugh himself wasn't present in the footage.
A second trailer for Star Trek: Picard has now been unveiled and puts Hugh in a slightly more prominent role. Jonathan Del Arco can first be seen peeking around a corner, and then returns running down a corridor with Picard at his side. The biggest story surrounding the first look at Hugh, however, is the character's drastically changed appearance compared to the last time he was seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Despite his evolving personality, Hugh retains his bo(r)g standard appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation, with pale white skin and significant cyborg modifications running around the head, left eye and body. In the new trailer for Star Trek: Picard, Hugh's Borg bio-enhancements have been drastically cut down. The large, dark metal headpiece and facial tech has been more or less entirely removed and only a select few contraptions remain. These primarily sit on the right hand side of Hugh's jawline and the left eye, where his Borg visor used to sit. The remainder of the Borg body gear has also been taken away.
In essence, Hugh now has a distinctly human appearance, and has even grown out his hair and achieved a more natural skin hue. This development provides a strong visual clue that Hugh has continued his deviation from the Borg collective since his final appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation and is likely now even more sympathetic to human emotions and concepts than he was previously. The balance between Hugh's human soul and Borg shell appears at first glance to be somewhat akin to that of Seven of Nine, where the body is allowed to function with only minimal, less invasive remnants of Borg technology.
This adds even more weight to the theory that Borg freedom will be a key part of Star Trek: Picard's story. While Hugh has evidently been allowed to continue his reversion back to humanity, this might've been forced upon him by a third party, and the scene where he and Picard are running down a corridor looks distinctly like a jailbreak. Hugh's story may still be a mystery, but his vastly more human appearance sets up a more rounded, evolved character for the former Borg upon his return to the Star Trek franchise.
Star Trek: Picard premieres January 23rd on CBS and January 24th on Amazon Prime Worldwide.
